Ghetto Marketing for a Good Cause

So most of you know that I haven't owned a car in almost 3 years now, and am now a bona fide cycling activist. A couple of months ago, my friend Tim challenged me to create a business that was related to this passion but also made a difference in a tangible way.

After much thought and a lot of research I had some t-shirts made up with a fat polar bear riding a bike that say's Burn Fat not Ice Caps. I then decided to give 10% of all sales to an organization called Bikes to Rwanda, which as the name implies, gives Rwandans bikes.My first approach was to wholesale them off to local bike shops. However, the recession has hit them particularly hard and it couldn't be worked out. They were however very enthusiastic about the idea, and wanted me to succeed, so they told me to try to get into the 3 State 3 Mountain Expo.

Through my friend Phil, the Outdoor Chattanooga Aficionado, I got hooked up, and actually got a booth there. My wife was a tremendous help throughout the whole process and even designed a poster for me.

The expo was quite the adventure. I still had to work Friday, so my dad maned the booth and when I got there around 5:00, much to my dismay he didn't have any sales. However, over the next couple of hours I was entertained to the fullest, with the vast majority of people very excited about the idea of advocating cycling as transportation and helping out a good cause. Let me back up a bit. I described the people as entertaining because when people heard about the project I got responses from: That t-shirt is "FU*#@&G AWESOME! I have to have one" to "What is an ice cap?"

Anyway, I sold some t-shirts for a great cause and hopefully in a couple of weeks I'll be blogging about the fat check I just sent to help out Rwandans. The biggest drawback I had was that people just don't carry cash around anymore. To which, yours truly is definitely guilty of. Therefore, I created a paypal link for anyone wanting a t-shirt.

My current inventory is 3 large blue and 2 large green american apparel shirts:2 medium and 1 small light blue women's rugged hype shirt and 3 medium and 3 large mens rugged hype shirts with worn in look on edges.So that is why this post is labeled ghetto marketing. Because to me you can't get anymore ghetto than posting a paypal button on your blog. But, it's for a good cause and I'll swallow a humility pill and hit "publish post"